lii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
as first deserving attention. Thus Wilson, with an intellect ex- 
panded with information, and still grasping at further improvement 
as a means of distinction, would fain become a traveller, even at 
the very moment when the sum total of his funds amounted to se- 
venty-five cents ! 
To Mr. WM. DUNCAN. 
Gray’s Feri'y^ December 24, 1804. 
You have no doubt looked for this letter long ago, but I 
wanted to see how matters would finally settle with i‘espect to my 
school before I wrote; they remain, however, as uncertain as before; 
and this quarter will do little more than defray my board and fire- 
wood. Comfortable intelligence truly, methinks I hear you say ; 
but no matter. * * * * 
“ I shall begin where you and I left off our story, viz. at Au- 
rora, on the shores of the Cayuga.* The evening of that day, Isaac 
and I lodged at the outlet of Owasco Lake, on the turnpike, seven 
or eight miles from Cayuga bridge; we waded into the stream, 
washed our boots and pantaloons, and walked up to a contemptible 
dram-shop, where, taking possession of one side of the fire, we sat 
deafened with the noise and hubbub of a parcel of drunken trades- 
men. At five next morning we started ; it had frozen ; and the 
road was in many places deep and slippery. I insensibly got into 
a hard step of walking ; Isaac kept groaning a rod or so behind, 
though I carried his gun. * ^ Qff again ; and we 
stopped at the outlet of Skaneateles Lake ; ate some pork-blubber 
and bread ; and departed. At about two in the afternoon we pas- 
sed Onondaga Hollow, and lodged in Manlius square, a village of 
thirty houses, that have risen like mushrooms in two or three 
* Mr. Duncan remained among his friends at Aurora. 
